Animals and Birds To Talk

1915

So Says Garner, Who Has Spent Years Studying Monkey Language

Los Angeles, Cal. — "There will come a day," says R. L. Garner, who tutored Maeterlinck in the ways of animals, "when all animal and bird life will become articulate. A dream? Cannot the bee teach us a higher communism — the quick, effective elimination of the unfit and shirker? Cannot the birds tell us their secret of flying? Would we not like to know why the oriole, the oven bird or castle building ant are so much better engineers than we?"

Garner says he thinks the gorilla and chimpanzee more civilized than man because they are more monogamous. He spent twenty-five years studying these animals in the Congo and after a vacation will return there. It is from the gorillas and chimpanzees, he says, that "will come the first twin cables from which scientists will hang a bridge on which man and his lesser brothers of the world will meet in oracular converse."


Scientist Whips Polecat

Then University Gives Professor Two Weeks' Leave

Berkeley, Cal. — T. C. Hine, professor of the chemistry department of the University of California, fought a hard battle with a polecat in the library of the university recently.

Victory perched on the crown of the savant after he had bombarded his antagonist with some of the choice volumes of the university library's modern literature and followed up this strategic move by tossing a hat box over the invader.

A quantity of chloroform poured through a tiny hole in the box stopped the polecat's activities.

The professor has been given a two weeks' leave of absence.

Gas Masks Are Urged for Mail Train Men

1920

Skunk Pelts in Parcel Post Cause of Woeful Wail

LOCKHART, Texas, Feb. 26. — Bring out the gas masks, for they are sorely needed.

Mail clerks running on trains in the lower part of the State are said to have asked Superintendent Gaines of Ft. Worth to give them protection.

They declare they have been so badly "gassed" by the fumes of skunk hides that they are now incapacitated for further duties unless the proper protection is given them. They have suggested to the district superintendent that U. S. Army gas masks be secured for them to wear during the distribution of the mails.

Skunk hides, say the mail clerks, do not lose their flavor in packing for shipment. Hence, the closed mail cars, as they went their way to the markets of the North, fairly reek with the odor of polecats.

One of the clerks making this station declares the sickening odor of polecat hides, bunches of them, he had to handle on a recent trip, made him so weak that he was compelled to quit the run before he had half completed it.